Their Home and Their Family
by Kayliem1999
Summary: Whoever said blood made a family never met them. In the aftermath of something terrible, Natasha finds herself filling shoes that are left empty. However, she finds more than she bargained for. What if she makes herself a family? What if she finds love in a place she thought she had lost? Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**This is just a little something I have been working on for awhile. As always, I own nothing. I hope you like it, let me know what you think. There will be about 12 or 13 chapters, maybe more, maybe less.**

()()()()()()()()()()()

It was this deep, horrible and demanding nagging that subsided in the depths of her mind. Pictures of Nathaniel chimed onto the screen of her specially designed STARK phone unceasingly, but that didn't scratch the itch. And as time passed, the feeling didn't go away, instead it got worse. Something was off, something bad was going to happen, something she could not quite put her finger on.

She was just about to toss an Avenger wannabe into a mat when her phone rang. Not her SHIELD phone or her STARK phone, but her personal phone. The one very few people had the number to. Without hesitation, Natasha swept his legs out from underneath him and barked 'never take your eyes off of your opponent' as she left the gym. She didn't even bother to answer it with her standard, huff of 'Romanoff'.

"This is Natasha," she said, horrified of what could've possibly gone wrong.

"Nat," Fury said.

"What happened," Natasha asked.

"There was an accident," Fury replied.

"Is Barton okay?" Natasha asked, feeling her heart speed up in her chest. She could take on an army of aliens, battle throngs of her former co-workers, and even knock out a never ending swarm of conscious robots without so much as blinking an eye. But when it came to her partner, she might as well have been a scared civilian.

"He's okay," Fury said.

"But?" Natasha prompted.

"Laura isn't," Fury replied. "The funeral is on Friday, there's a car waiting for you outside."

There was nothing else. The line went dead before she could so much as ask a question that was blaring in her mind. _What about the kids?_

Between the mad woman like sprinting through the hallways of the training facility and the hasty shoving of the essentials into her duffle bag, Natasha failed to realize that she had a visitor standing in the frame of her wide open door. She nearly whipped the gun out of her jumpsuit when she turned to find Steve Rogers standing there with his brow knitting together, concern written all over his face.

"Rogers," Natasha said. "I'm taking a leave of absence."

"Want to talk about it?" He offered, taking a seat on the unmade bed.

"No," Natasha said. "It's personal."

"When will you be back?"

"I don't know," Natasha said stepping past her teammate. "I'll call you when I get there."

Natasha didn't say anything else, she was already halfway out the building.

()()()()()()()()()()()()

She hated this. Hated the circumstances, but here she was in a small SHIELD car driving through what seemed to be endless miles of crops, trying her hardest to prevent the patter of the rain from lulling her to sleep. Natasha knew where she was going, she knew the way by heart. It had started off as her safe house, one from the old days before SHIELD. It had been her favorite, secluded from the world. Clint and Coulson were the only ones who knew it existed. Fury would eventually set up a security system and when Clint met Laura, it had been her gift to them on their wedding day.

She saw the brick chimney first, the one that Clint had called her in to help him fix when Laura got pregnant with Cooper all those years ago. Then the disintegrating shingles on top of the barn that Natasha had spent years trying to convince Clint to call someone to fix. He, being a stubborn pain in the ass, had refused, claiming that they could fix it themselves. Natasha was a lot of things, but she wasn't a roofer.

Natasha sat outside the house for a long time, just staring at the seemingly lifeless house. There was a light on in the living room, the soft warm light that was probably coming from the ceramic lamp on the end table riddled with super-glued cracks. Natasha smiled at the rusty red wagon under the oak tree and the pink bike balanced on the side of the house. Someone, she assumed Cooper, had made a pile of crumbling leaves in the yard and had abandoned the old rake in the overgrown grass. If she had been there for any other reason, she would've ridden Clint's ass until he pulled the run down lawn mower out of the barn and trimmed his own freaking grass while she sat on the front porch sipping Laura's famous peach iced tea. But it wasn't just a regular visit and she knew that she would most likely do it for him.

Somehow, this was actually scaring her. The idea of having to step across the threshold and not see Laura standing at the stove making mac and cheese for the kids or yelling at Clint to get his muddy boots off of the dang coffee table. She couldn't bear to see the hollowed out gaze that would have taken up shop in the eyes of Cooper and little Lila, the kind of look any kid would get after taking the devastating blow of losing their mother. It was all worse than going in blind knowing that there wasn't a back-up plan or an extraction team.

There was an unease filling her body, one that was far worse than the worry that had formerly inhabited it. This, she felt, was somehow her fault. Laura shouldn't have died, she should have been tucking the kids in right about now. Lila would probably be begging for a bedtime story and Cooper for five more minutes of TV time. Clint would probably be struggling to get Nate to take a bottle, a battle in and of itself. None of that was happening.

Natasha could only imagine the tears behind Lila's eyes and the feigned strength in Cooper's. Clint likely moved around the house as a ghost, Cooper doing his best to assist his father with the baby. There were probably thousands of casserole dishes in the fridge, all of which would go untouched. Clint was too full of pride to take the pity food. She couldn't bear to think about the look that would probably replace his playful smirk.

But she had to do this….just not today.


	2. Chapter 2

**I OWN NOTHING! Thank you all so much for your great reviews and as asked for, here is chapter 2.**

()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Natasha found a black dress in a thrift shop that was in town. The dress, just like the store, reeked of moth balls and dust. But she wasn't going out on the town or seducing a mark, she was going to a funeral. The funeral of the only woman that she had been real friends with.

She didn't go up and stand next to Clint, she didn't pick up Lila when she started sobbing or promise Cooper that everything would be okay. She didn't do anything. Natasha remained posted underneath the overgrown tree, keeping watch of the whole scene unfolding in front of her. And after spending what felt like years trying to figure out how to help her stubborn partner, Natasha realized that the best thing she could do right now was pull on a pair of sunglasses and a blonde wig. She would only get in the way. And there were too many people around that could have recognized her, too many people to wonder why the widow was being consoled by a beautiful woman. And she would cut him some slack for not noticing the blonde stranger, the poor man just lost his wife.

Following the slow disappearance of the throngs of grievers, only five people were left standing in front of the newly covered plot. Clint's little family left in tatters by the death of his wife and Natasha. Or Bella Watson, if anyone asked, one of Laura's friends from college. But no one asked, she was just invisible, a mere mourner. Nothing special, not to any of the people that saw her.

"I'm sorry, Clint," Natasha said, her voice slicing through the silent barrier like the daggers strapped to various parts of her body. She pulled off the wig and the sunglasses, casting her gaze to the ground.

"What are you doing here, Natasha?" Clint asked, his words crackling and breaking over every syllable.

Natasha stepped forward, the spikes of her heels digging into the mud. Lila ran toward her, throwing herself into her arms. She buried her little face in the familiar crook of her aunt's neck, happy that for once, something was still the same.

"Fury told me about the accident," Natasha said. "Seeing as Laura and I were actually friends, I thought that I should pay my respects. You should've called me, Clint. I had to hear about this from a freaking spy, not my best friend."

Clint said nothing, just nodded, refusing to look at the woman who was now standing beside him.

"You can't take care of them on your own, Clint," Natasha said. "You're a superhero, but you don't have super powers."

And Clint knew that there was no point in arguing with her. He was going to need all the help he could get, even if it was from a woman who had close to zero maternal instinct.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Natasha helped get the kids changed out of their horribly ruffled and awful black clothes. After several failed attempts, she put a stack of grilled cheeses on the table –really the only thing that she could cook on a good day. She got Lila settled down with a handful of broken crayons she dug out of the junk drawer and a stack of printer paper. Cooper was glued to whatever cartoons were on the DVR and Nathaniel was down for a nap.

When she stopped a minute to breathe, she found Clint sitting on the bed in the master bedroom. His jacket was hung over the creaky rocking chair in the corner and he had started the process of taking off his shirt, but it appeared that fumbling with the buttons had exhausted him, leaving him broken on his side of the bed. She recognized that stance, the hunched back and the hand over his mouth; he was trying not to cry. And it was one of the few times that to her it looked like that he was failing miserably.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her standing in the doorway. She had ditched the high heels and traded them in for her bare-feet. She was still wearing the dress though, one that smelled like a musty storage unit, but this was Natasha. She could pull off second hand clothes as if they were designer or handcrafted just for her.

Natasha walked slowly into the room, approaching him as quietly as she could, as if he were a mark. She placed the plate with the sandwich on it on the table next to the bed. She sat down on the bed, placing her hand on his knee and wrapped an arm around his body. His body shook against her and she felt his head droop into the crook of her neck.

"I can't believe I let her go," Clint sobbed. "It was just to the grocery store."

"Clint," Natasha said, as soothingly as she could manage.

"It's my job to protect her," Clint said.

"You can't protect her from everything. You know as well as I do that this world is dangerous. There are monsters around every corner, more than we can begin to understand. You didn't know that someone would hit her, you don't think that you can die on the way to the grocery store. You can protect her from the bad guys that we fight, but you couldn't stop this. It's one of the things that is out of your control. This isn't your fault, Clint."

"But it is," he yelled, jumping off the bed. Natasha found herself on her feet again staring deep into the eyes of her best friend. She flinched slightly caught off guard by his sudden outburst. She recovered quickly, ready to take whatever else he shouted at her. "I didn't tell her that I loved her."

"What?" Natasha asked. Scratch that, she wasn't ready for what he had to say.

"We were screaming at each other the night before and I was half asleep on the couch when she left that morning. She said that she loved me and I didn't say it back. I don't remember what we were fighting about, but all I remember is that I was so mad about it that I didn't even say goodbye. Laura walked out the door and I just watched her."

Natasha didn't do a lot of hugging, didn't do a lot of physical contact unless it involved breaking the jaw of the person she was touching or snapping their neck. But, she grabbed him by his collar and pulled him into her small body. She held him like she did in the days before Laura, in the days when he woke up screaming from a nightmare and she was the first one he came to. A hand cupped the back of his head, running her fingers through his hair in that way she knew calmed him down.

She could feel tears in her own eyes, threatening to spill. She had seen all kinds of monsters, fought some of the worst of them. But this was far worse than any war she had ever fought before. How could you fight the demons that you couldn't see? How could you protect your best friend from this kind of loss? This wasn't something she could fix with a gun or a poorly planned extraction plan. This wasn't a battle she could help him fight either. This was something he would have to do on his own while she watched on helplessly.


	3. Chapter 3

**I OWN NOTHING!**

()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Natasha woke up the next morning, stuck under the weight of something quite larger than her. Her instincts kicked in and she fought against the weight with everything her barely awake body could muster. It took a minute of squirming and fighting to realize that it was a sleeping Clint and no matter how much she struggled, there was no getting him off of her by normal means. She would have to bring out the big guns.

With perfectly executed ease, her dainty figures danced across the sensitive exposed skin. She felt his entire body tense against her, his body convulsing and spazzing as if he were having a seizure. A suffocated groan that Natasha took as a laugh escaped his lips, at what point she realized that she too was giggling like a little kid.

It was something she had always done, a perfectly good move when he had her pinned on the sparring mats or just when she wanted to mess with him. The man might have been an assassin, but he was just as ticklish as a small child. It was a weakness really, one that she was all too happy to exploit.

Clint regained his composure, rolling over and pinning her arms above her head with one hand and using the other one to tickle her. Natasha's body erupted with laughter, her eyes scrunched closed and her mouth wide open. She squirmed, desperate to wriggle out of his grasp. Did she mention that it was one of her weaknesses too?

"Don't start something you can't finish, Tasha," Clint says, smiling at his best friend.

"Right back at ya," she gasped, using her body weight to flip them so she was once again on top. Clint, absentmindedly pushed the strap of her tank top off of her shoulder to reveal a thin, jagged scar.

 _He remembered the day she got it, the day they met. The petite girl, hardly older than sixteen, agreed to go with him. She had conditions, of course. After all, she was the black widow. He expected her to ask for cash, weapons, a jet, or immunity._

 _But the condition was something he hadn't expected. She wanted him to help her dig a tracker out of her collar bone. She told him to wait there, and he did, for some ridiculous reason. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go. He saw her running away from him, her long curls swaying in the cold Russian wind._

 _Only minutes later she returned, a slight cut on her forehead, but a surgical kit in one of her hands. She was covered in blood and he got the sick suspicion that most of it wasn't hers. With horrifying ease, she instructed him through the procedure, waiving off offers of anesthetics. He said he could go to the bar up the street and at least get enough booze to get her a little drunk._

 _"_ _Why?" She chuckled, her accent slipping through. "Hoping to get me drunk and alone?_

 _Even when she had a blade slicing through her skin this girl had a sense of humor. When the chip was successfully dug out of her chest –she had miraculously left out the part that it was actually implanted in her bone – she told him to stomp on it. Then, get this, she did her own stitches. All he did was watch in awestricken horror as she gritted her teeth and jammed the needle through her skin. She finished quickly, tying the final knot and biting the remnants of the surgical suture with her teeth._

 _The most impressive part of it was that she stood up, no pain evident in her eyes or stance. Was she even human? Clint didn't realize that he would spend the better part of his life pondering that same question._

 _"_ _Clint," he said, extending his hand. "What's your name, kiddo?"_

 _"_ _Natasha," she replied, shaking it._

Clint felt Natasha tense against his touch, her body jerking away from him and jumping off the bed faster than he could blink. She was shutting down, something he had seen her do so often it hardly fazed him. There was a swish of her crimson curls before she disappeared in the hallway with a slam of the bedroom door. Nathaniel's cries filled the house and he could hear her cursing.

It was only a minute before the crying stopped, and once again, he could hear her voice through the baby monitor on the nightstand. This time gentler, softer, her words maternal. "It's okay, baby," Natasha said. "I've got you."

When Natasha walked into the kitchen to get Nathaniel a bottle, she found Lila and Cooper sitting at the table. They watched her expectantly, their hands folded and their posture near perfect. It was a little unnerving for her.

"I'm assuming you munchkins want breakfast," Natasha said.

Lila was the first one to say something. "Mommy usually makes us French toast on Saturdays," she squeaked.

So with minimal help from Cooper, Natasha made French toast. There were only a few batches that were totally inedible, after the third or fourth try, she got the hang of it. She had to give props to Laura. Natasha had witnessed her on more than one occasion making breakfast with a baby strapped to her chest. That woman made it look easy. It sure as hell was not. Natasha might have saved the world once or twice, but Laura was the true superhero.

There was a mountain of dishes in the sink when all was said and done. Together, the children had consumed enough French toast to feed a whole army. After breakfast, Natasha got them washed up, dressed and settled down in the living room with various activities. Cooper was watching some cartoons, only halfheartedly doing his math homework. Lila was playing with her dolls, sitting happily in front of her massive doll house, talking to her red headed doll as she changed her into a ball gown. Natasha had purchased that doll for her, after she had been stationed somewhere for far too long, she felt bad and visited bearing gifts. Lila, four at the time, had happily named the doll Natasha. Natasha sat at the kitchen table, perched in just the right spot where she could keep an eye on both children while she fed Nathaniel.

There was a plate of French toast made up for Clint sitting on the placemat across from her. She even drenched it in the excessive amount of maple syrup she had watched him consume for years. When he finally came downstairs, a towel wrapped around his hips and his short hair spiked up from the water.

He kissed both of his children on the head before walking into the kitchen. "You okay?" He asked, pouring himself a glass of orange juice.

"Yeah," Natasha said, looking down at the half-sleeping baby in her arms.

"Did you make French toast?" Clint asked, sitting down in his chair.

"Lila and Coop said it was a Saturday morning tradition," Natasha said. "I thought we should try to keep things as normal as we can for them."

"This is good, Nat," Clint said through a mouthful of mashed up food bits. She nodded her head, shifting the baby in her arms.

Clint took in her appearance. Something about her was off, she was jumpier than usual. Her emerald eyes weren't as bright, having dulled slightly since he had seen her last. He could have sworn that there was a new scar slicing through her bottom lip, but he could be wrong. Had she gotten that since he had last seen her? How long had that been exactly? Far too long he decided. It was hard to keep track of all the scars, hard to keep tabs on the origins of every blip in her life. Their line of work lent itself to more dangers than most and with her still in active duty, there were more scars on her body than he could count. Most of them disappeared or faded over the years, her body designed and modified in a way that healed faster than most people's.


	4. Chapter 4

**I OWN NOTHING!**

()()()()()()()()()()()()

Things were strange for a while, understandably so. Clint and Natasha barely spoke, the tension growing more and more unbearable as time went on. Despite the practical radio silence, they were a team. The children went back to their normal routines, Cooper to school and Lila to morning kindergarten. Natasha stayed home with them, enjoying her leave of absence and the opportunity to play house for a little while.

"Coop," Natasha shouted, stirring something on the stove. "Dinner's almost ready and it's your night to set the table."

"Coming," he shouted back. She could hear heavy footsteps running in the hallway upstairs.

"No running in the house," she hollered, smiling a little bit to herself. Who said a spy couldn't be a good mother? Nothing got past her.

Cooper grabbed the stack of plates off the counter, balancing the cups and silverware on top. He rolled his eyes when Natasha instructed him to be careful and she smiled at him. She laid out a pot holder on the table and placed the steaming pot on it.

Natasha was no good at cooking, it was one of the few skills she had never mastered. But over the years, she had picked up a few recipes from Clint and Pepper taught her how to make pasta from scratch. So, like every Tuesday, they were having spaghetti with a lovely side of broccoli she already knew she would have to force down the kids' throats.

"What's for dinner, Aunt Nat," Lila asked.

"Spaghetti," she replied. "Go get your dad and tell him to bring down your little brother."

Lila disappeared and returned less than a minute later, her father close behind. Natasha took the tray off of the high chair and waited for Clint to put the baby in his spot before latching the tray back on. She put a little plastic plate with cut up noodles with a little bit of sauce. The kid deserved to live a little bit, after all, it was bath night.

"How was school today, Coop?" Clint asked.

"Good," the boy said, picking at the plain pasta and the pile of peas on his plate. "We watched Magic School Bus in science today."

"Lila?" Natasha asked. "What about you?"

"I think that I want to retire," Lila stated matter of factly, never once glancing up from the mess she was stirring up on her purple plastic plate.

Natasha and Clint glanced at each other, trying to stifle the giggles that threatened to erupt out of their throats. She put down her fork and swallowed the bite in her mouth. "What makes you say that?" Natasha asked.

"It's so boring," Lila exclaimed.

"I hate to break it to you, squirt, but you've got about twelve more years to go," Clint smiled.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Lila huffed.

"Sorry, sweetie," Natasha smiled sadly. "We all have to do it."

That was a lie. She had never so much as set foot in a public school. Well, unless you count that one time that she did that op before SHIELD, but that took like two days and is entirely aside the point. She also knew that Clint had stopped going to school when he was hardly a teenager. With one flick of her eyes, she saw his face twist ever so slightly leading her to believe that the same thoughts flying through her mind were racing through his as well.

"Twelve years!" Lila whined. "I don't even think I can count that high."

"And that's why you have to go to school," Clint said. Natasha smiled into her glass of water, shooting Clint a look over the rim.

"It's not that bad, Lila," Cooper reassured adjusting his glasses. "It gets more interesting."

"Easy for you to say, you like school. You're probably going to be a scientist or a mathy dude. I want to be a soccer player."

"Sweetie, you hate soccer," Natasha reminded.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Later that evening, after the munchkins were tucked into bed and the security systems were in place, Clint found Natasha passed out in the baby's room. He woke up following a severe bout of the usual nightmares to find that Natasha wasn't curled up in the bed next to him. He wasn't worried that something had happened to her, but he went looking for her anyway. When he found her, he wasn't at all surprised to find her in the rocking chair.

The baby was leaning against her chest also asleep with his head on her shoulder. She was covered in baby vomit, even though Nate had long ago out grown the whole spitting-up phase that had disgusted both him and Natasha. It appeared that they had a sick baby on their hands.

Clint crossed the room, trying and failing not to wake Natasha. The woman was the lightest sleeper he had ever come in contact with. She didn't punch him or kick him in the jaw like she had in the past, just stirred awake. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him.

"He's got a fever, 101 and I've lost count of how many times he's thrown up," Natasha said, sleep still in her voice. "I think he has that bug that Lila had on Monday."

"Do you want me to take over?" Clint asked.

"He's asleep right now, I think we should put him in the bassinet in the master bedroom and sleep while we can," Natasha said, laying out plans as if this were a mission. Natasha changed clothes while Clint laid Nate down in the crib in front of the bed. Armed with Baby Tylenol, they fell onto the master bed and passed out.

They stopped counting the number of times that they woke up with the baby and they stopped changing into vomit-free clothes. Natasha woke the next morning dressed in one of Clint's t-shirts and her underwear. Clint was stripped down to his boxers, having abandoned the t-shirt after the second time it got thrown up on. The duo was lying on the floor in front of Nathaniel's bassinet in a disgusting heap. But to their relief, Nate was not throwing up or crying, but lying in his bed giggling happily as he played with his toes. It appeared that the worst of it had passed, the storm that had been approaching breaking up on the horizon.

Natasha leaned against the headboard of the king-sized bed, collapsing a little bit into Clint as he did the same. She rested her head on his shoulder, glaring through the sunlight that streamed through the big window. "God, I am so tired," Natasha groaned. "What time is it?"

"Half past ten," Clint replied, glancing at the alarm clock on his bedside table.

"I don't want to move," Natasha sighed. "But I know I need a shower. So do you. And someone has to feed the kids."

"I'll handle it," Clint said, kissing Natasha on the top of the head before climbing to his feet. He extended his hands in her direction, pulling her to her feet as if she weighed nothing. "You take a shower and I'll have breakfast waiting for you when you're done."

Natasha looked at him gratefully, turning and disappearing behind the bathroom door. The warm water felt good on her skin, the repetition of the drops relaxing her tense muscles. She reveled in the warmth, her body so fatigued. This was one of the hardest things she had ever done. Motherhood, she decided, was much harder than being an assassin. The hardest job on the face of the planet, no doubt about it in her mind. However, it was far more rewarding than working in the field.

When she had her fill and felt as though she had gotten all the baby vomit off of her skin, she turned off the water and pulled on the towel that hung over her hook. She wrapped it around her body and walked out into the room. On the bed was a pair of jeans and a maroon V-neck folded and waiting for her. She dropped the towel and pulled on the clothes.

Natasha glanced in the mirror quickly, dragging her fingers through her hair trying to pick through the tangles. She ran down the stairs, peaking into the living room to find Cooper doing some homework in front of the TV while Lila played with Nathaniel. She found Clint in the kitchen, stacking dishes in the dishwasher. She sat at the table, a plate with a still steaming omelet at her spot.

She sat down in her chair, picking up the fork and digging right into her breakfast, barely allowing herself to taste it or breathe between bights. Natasha hadn't realized how hungry she was. When the food was finally consumed and she looked up, a hot mug of coffee in her hands. Clint sat across from her, his own mug on the table in front of him, watching her. In his eyes, Natasha could see the cool and easy grind of calculation as he analyzed her movements.

How had they gotten here? Natasha would have been lying if she hadn't spent the better part of their partnership imagining what it would be like to end up here. She had always been able to see herself settling down with Clint. Until he had found her, she hadn't even dared imagine such a thing. She doubted that she would live long enough to have a family. They would always end up here, isolated from the world raising a family. She just never saw it happening like this and most certainly hadn't considered this life since she stood next to Laura and Clint in that awful lavender dress at their wedding.

She had been here before, sat at this exact table with that same man sitting across from her. It was years ago, the roar of children in the background absent. Laura had yet to stumble into their lives, in fact, the two were still married.

A small, diamond was on her finger and her heart was warm in her chest. She had never wanted children, afraid of the liability that came along with them. It never been a concern for her though, the possibility had been stolen from her after her graduation. She had never considered having children, never felt like she was missing out on anything until she met Clint.

He had this almost childish hope of getting married, retiring and having a family. She didn't want to be the reason that he didn't get to live out that dream, no matter how much she adored him. Their marriage, though it lasted for three years, would end because he was willing to give up his dream for her and that was something she never wanted to steal from him. She filed for a divorce and if she closed her eyes, she could still see the heartbreak in his eyes when he handed her the papers with his boxy signature scratched out beneath her own. Six months later, he met Laura at a coffee shop in DC.

Less than a year after they met, Natasha received an invitation to their wedding. She would attend, standing with Clint's groomsmen wearing a rendition of the bridesmaids' dress. Thankfully, there was enough room to conceal a whole arsenal of weapons. Not that she would really need it, most of the guests were Laura's relatives, the rest a few SHIELD buddies and of course Coulson who was all too happy to see Barton in a healthy relationship, even if it was with a civilian. He frowned on internal fraternization, but kept checking on Natasha all throughout the night.

"I'm okay," she insisted, though she was having trouble convincing herself of that.

That was all a lifetime ago, Natasha realized. The road she had picked hadn't allowed her to have the luxury of family, not one of her own really. She had Clint and she had the kids and she had the other Avengers, but there was no one out there that had her blood. No one out there that shared her history. She could never fully leave SHIELD, she decided, never put down the gun. But she could fill Laura's shoes, she could take on motherhood happily.

"You know they would love it if you stayed," Clint said as if he was reading her mind. He took a long drag from his coffee, ignoring how the scolding liquid burned his tongue. "Permanently, I mean. This is your house, after all."

"It was only a house to me," Natasha said, pulling herself back to reality. "You and Laura made it a home. It has meaning and I would ruin that."

"Tash," Clint sighed. "Just think about it, okay? I'm not asking you to hang up the suit forever or anything, but you don't have to live on base to be a part of SHILED."

"I'll think about it," Natasha agreed, taking a sip from her mug. But when she weighed the options, she knew what she had to do.


	5. Chapter 5

**I OWN NOTHING!**

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Really, there was no question about it. Natasha decided it would be best to go wherever it was that she was needed most. At that moment in time, she was needed most at that little farm house in the middle of nowhere. It would have been hard to leave them anyway, over the course of the last few months, she had grown far more attached to those kids than she had realized. Just the thought of leaving them left her with a hallowed out feeling in her chest.

So she continued to change diapers and pack school lunches. Clint picked the kids up from school, Natasha had a snack waiting for them when they burst through the front door excited to tell them all about what happened at school that day. Clint and Natasha found time to spar in the barn, Nate sitting in the corner playing with toys while Natasha usually beat the crap out of Clint.

She was gaining the upper-hand. Not only was she smaller and more agile, but Clint's age was beginning to catch up to him. Natasha was all too happy to exploit that weakness. Clint was still an amazing fighter, remaining in unbelievable shape. But this was Natasha he was up against, she was flawless when it came to fighting. The woman seemingly had not a single weakness, her body a perfectly crafted war machine.

Clint knew that she had practically been designed that way. Hardened from a young age and operated on. Given drugs that enhanced her senses and made her heal all the more quickly. She was built to be a weapon, but she was so much more than that.

"You're too slow, old man," Natasha teased, throwing herself effortlessly onto his shoulders and wrapping her thighs around his neck. He struggled against her for a moment, grabbing onto her legs and attempting to pry her off of him. Clint mostly succeeded, using his strength to pull her off of him and toss her to the floor. She was small, strong for her size, but had nothing in comparison to Clint. He was a man, built broader and taller than her. He towered over her, making her seem even smaller than she already was.

"That's a low blow, sweetheart," he grunted as he blocked a kick aimed at his chest. With one swift movement he had ahold of her foot and twisted so she was at the mercy of him. But she was quicker than he calculated, easily shifting out of his grip, using the momentum to land on top of him sending them both sailing toward the ground. Clint hit the mat first, with a thud as the air was sucked out of him. Natasha landed on top of him, giggling as she fell.

"Dada," Nate gurgled, clapping his hands together. Natasha rolled off of Clint and rose to her feet with delicate grace. She crossed the room, downing a large gulp of water and lifting the baby off of the ground. Natasha rested him on her hip, smiling down at him. He was growing quickly, it wouldn't be too long before he started walking.

Natasha loved watching the baby grow, but at the same time, she wanted him to be a baby forever. He was so happy, so innocent and it was a shame to have to let that go. If it were up to her, she would protect him from the world, but that job was something that even she couldn't do.

"You like seeing Aunt Nat beating your daddy?" Natasha cooed, bouncing the giggling baby. "Don't you."

"What a traitor," Clint stated, feigning hurt. He lifted his son out of Natasha's arms holding him against his body. Somehow on his journey from the dirty ground to where Natasha was standing, he had ditched his sweaty t-shirt. The well-defined muscles of his abdomen were on display. Even Natasha had to admit that he was well-built. From the deep definition of his muscles to his stormy blue-gray eyes, he was most definitely attractive. If Natasha hadn't already ridden that ride a few times before, he probably would have been a weakness for her. But she had already be around that rodeo a few times before and, though it was amazing, she wouldn't risk what they had. Not now anyway.

"Lila and Coop are gonna get out of school soon," Natasha said picking up hers and Clint's abandoned t-shirts. "We both need to shower and the one of us needs to go get them."

She walked through the door he was holding open for her and the two started their trek back to the house. Clint agreed to pick up the kids under the condition that she made dinner.

"I think that can be arranged," Natasha said. "But I get the first shower."

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

The front door swung open and in came the kids, sprinting through the living room and into the kitchen. Lila rushed through the door frame first, pushing her brother out of the way so she could climb into her chair. Two plates of graham crackers were waiting for them, each paired with a small scoop of strawberry yogurt and a glass of apple juice. It wasn't necessarily the best snack in the world, Laura could have definitely produced something far greater, but it wasn't that bad.

Cooper and Lila gobbled it up, as per usual, like starving little munchkins. They might have had Laura's eyes, but they had their father's appetite.

"How was school?" Natasha asked, sitting down in one of the empty chairs a cup of tea in her hand. She had changed since her shower. When Clint had left, she was still walking around in that ratty old gray bathrobe that she left in the guest bathroom. Now, she was wearing a pair of leggings with a hot pink stripe on the leg and a gray t-shirt that was a few sizes too big for her. Clint wasn't sure if it had been his to begin with or not.

Natasha and Clint listened intently to both children rattle off activities and the major events of what went down at recess that day. When the snacks were eaten and the stories recited, Cooper and Lila disappeared into their separate parts of the house. Lila settled down with a coloring book in the living room. Cooper sat down at the kitchen table getting Clint to help him with his science homework. Natasha sat on the counter with a tablet in her hand, going over a mission file Steve had forwarded her while keeping an eye on the lasagna in the oven.

"This is strange," Natasha muttered under her breath as she scrolled through the pictures that were attached to the file.

"What?" Clint asked, looking up from the worksheet he was examining. Cooper, as intuitive as he was, knew when they were talking about adult things. He left the room silently, gathering his homework. Natasha waited until she heard his bedroom door close before continuing.

"This file that Steve sent me," Natasha sighed, placing the tablet on the counter. She blinked, trying to get the bloody images out of her head, but it seemed that the gory pictures were scarred into her mind. "Did Coulson copy you on his new protocol? The one with Gifted People."

"Yeah," Clint asked. "What about it?"

"There's this _thing,_ Coulson thinks it's Kree," Natasha started. "Anyway, no one really understands what he is after, just that he is trying to kill Inhumans. So far, SHIELD has uncovered forty-seven of his victims. All of them had these what looks like exit wounds, but there's no entry wound. It's almost like he is ripping out the source of their gifts."

"Didn't the Kree create the crystals that cause Terra-Genesis," Clint asked.

"Yeah, but Kree believe that Inhumans are abominations, that the experimentation with the Diviners was wrong and cruel, something humans were never meant to experience. If nature had intended for them to be that way, their DNA wouldn't have needed to be changed."

"The Kree aren't wrong," Clint said. "But I wouldn't go so far as to call them abominations."

"There's this new league we are up against," Natasha said. "New York and Sokovia were only the beginning of it. We are in way over our head."

"Tell me about it," Clint said. Natasha rested her head on his shoulder as he sidled up next to her.

"Anyway," Natasha said. "I asked Coulson for a leave of absence and he asked me to take on an executive position on a new initiative instead. He's calling it the New York Initiative. The position would allow me to pick my assignments and my hours, allow some more flexibility. I would still have to help Rogers train newbies in my area of expertise, but I think that given the circumstances, this would be good for us. At least until things get a little more normal around here."

"What is the New York Initiative?"

"I head all assignments that have to do with alien tech, operations and stuff like that," Natasha said. "He said I was one of the most qualified people for the job, you and Johnson are the only ones with better credentials."

"So does this mean you're retiring?" Clint asked.

"I don't think I will ever be able to retire," Natasha said. "Even you couldn't fully retire and you have a family. It's just too big a part of me. And I'm scared that the second I put down my gun, my past will catch up to me."

"I can't put down the bow, either," Clint said.

"The world will always need saving," Natasha huffed. "And I'm too guilty to stop saving it."

"Is this about what you said in New York?" Clint asked. She looked away from him, her body stiffening just the slightest bit. "Nat, you've repaid all the debts you've made."

"You can't just wipe out that much red, Clint," Natasha said. "You don't understand all the bad things that I did."

"You didn't have a choice, Tasha," Clint pleaded. "They would have killed you."

"But what makes my life more important than the innocent lives I stole," she asked. "Yeah, some of the bastards deserved what I did to them, but a lot of them didn't and I can't take back what I did. No matter how many lives I save, I will always be a murderer."

"But you are so much more than that. You aren't a bad guy anymore."

Was she a good guy now? She felt like the lines between good and evil were blurred and it was hard for her to tell whether or not she had crossed them. Suddenly, she was reminded of that moment on the Hellicarrier where Loki managed to find the chink in her armor. She was a liar and a killer and she did it for liars and killers, even if it was for the greater good. The world knew about her crimes, anyone who had internet access could see her for what she really was.

"Am I?" Natasha asked. "Because have you seen the way people out there look at me? When they recognize me, they see what I did. They see me the way I see myself and the way I should be seen. I am a monster, Clint."

She was standing now and so was he. They were face to face, both in war mode, ready to fight.

"You are not a monster."

"SHIELD sent you to kill me," Natasha reminded. "You have to be pretty bad to get on SHIELD's radar the way I did."

"But I didn't kill you," Clint said.

"When Loki had control over you, Clint, you saw me for what I really am. You tried to kill me because to you I was no longer a little girl who was never given a choice, I was a monster. You were no longer that sap that pitied me and gave me a chance, but a cold hearted assassin, doing the job you should have done years ago."

"That's not fair, Nat, and you know it."

"It's not fair?" Natasha asked sarcastically. "It's perfectly fair, Barton. Watching you try to shoot me through the eye was worse than being tossed around the helicarrier by the Hulk. You wanted to kill me and that was worse than any nightmare I could have about the Red Room or the KGB or all the blood on my hand. I wasn't going to be able to kill you, Clint, and if it had come to it, I would have taken that arrow."

She was crying now, her body shaking with anger and grief and sorrow and fear. Her eyes radiated the emotions swirling around in the pit of her stomach, she couldn't look at him. Natasha averted her eyes, taking a step away from Clint making a move to dash out of the kitchen. He was faster than her, reaching out a hand to grab her by the elbow. He pulled her back, turning her so she was facing him.

Clint towered over her, his body a wall that kept her in place. "You don't get to run away, kiddo," he whispered, running a hand through her matted down curls. He held her there, her face nestled into his chest. She felt the walls she had built over the last few years crumble down as she barred the deepest emotions she had never allowed herself to feel. "Not this time."

Natasha inhaled the familiar sent that was Clint, allowing the sweat and hint of cologne to lull her into a state of serenity. So much time had passed since she had felt like that, felt this safe. God, it was good to be home.


	6. Chapter 6

**I OWN NOTHING!**

()()()()()()()()()()()()()

October 27th. It was Laura's birthday, a tragedy Natasha wasn't ready to handle. That morning, Clint didn't get out of bed. He stayed there, staring blankly at the wall over her side of the bed. She had never seen him that empty before.

Natasha left a tray of eggs on the floor next to the bed, but didn't say anything. She kissed him on the head and then left to take the kids to school. When she got back, the food was untouched and he was still unmoving. Lunch rolled around and she made him a grilled cheese with little slices of tomatoes in it, the way she knew he liked it, but not a bite had been taken when she returned an hour later to retrieve the dishes.

Natasha let him grieve, not really sure what to do. She had never been all that good at comforting people. She could calm the nightmares and silent the screams. She could protect him from the monsters that they fought, but this was a battle that he would have to fight on his own, much to her dismay.

Natasha drove them to the cemetery, as per Lila's request. She had a card for mommy, she exclaimed happily when she walked through the front door. So Natasha bundled up the kids in jackets and put Nate in his car seat. Cooper helped her load the stroller into the trunk and they were off. She told Clint they'd be back in time for dinner, not that he really cared. He was turned off from the world.

It was heartbreaking for her watching the kids cry. Cooper pretended he wasn't crying as he told his mother all about how he won the science fair, but Natasha saw him wipe some tears off of his cheek. Lila put the construction paper card she had made next to her mom's headstone, pushing away the leaves that were piling up in front of the engraving.

Natasha walked over to Cooper, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him into her side. She kissed the top of his head gently. She hadn't realized how tall he had gotten over the last few months. "She'd be proud of you, Coop," Natasha whispered into the dark waves on top of his head.

"Do you think my mommy is cold?" Lila asked, replacing her mitten-covered hand back into Natasha's.

"No, sweetie," Natasha said, trying to recover from the little pang she felt in her chest.

"Can she hear me?" Lila asked.

"I'm sure she can hear you," Natasha said, smiling sadly.

"Happy birthday, mommy," Lila whispered, leaning down to pat the little blades of grass that were beginning to sprout up from the ground. Cooper helped Natasha push the stroller through the patches of mud and grass. She buckled the kids in the car, struggling to get the buckles done over their thick coats. She got the car started, the heat blowing full blast as they drove back toward the farm.

She got them settled at the table with leftover tuna noodle casserole for dinner and ran baths for Lila and Nate. Cooper showered in the guest room and she cleaned up the dishes the kids left on the table. The dishwasher was loaded, the table wiped down, the homework all done and the children all tucked in bed. She climbed the stairs reluctantly, her delicate steps silent as she treaded softly down the hallway. She slipped into the bathroom, not bothering to glance over at Clint. She was certain he hadn't moved since she had last checked on him.

Natasha stood in the shower, her hand on the chipped tile wall and her head ducked as the water trickled from the faucet. She felt a day's worth of dirt and stress wash off her body and down the drain. And now that she had stopped, she felt the grief of Laura's absence for herself.

Natasha had spent the better part of the last ten years distrusting the other woman. It wasn't until Lila was born that she really started to bond with her, form a friendship with her. It was something she had never experienced with Clint's first wife Bobbi or the girls he had dated in her early days at SHIELD. Morse and his divorce was finalized before Clint and her had been partners for a full year, her presence temporary. The other girls, Natasha had been introduced to only a few of them. Laura was different. She was his happy ever after, the girl of his dreams. She made Clint happy in a way no other woman had been able to, including herself.

Natasha eventually got out of the shower, her body beginning to shrivel up a little and the warm water rapidly growing cooler. She pulled on a pair of fuzzy socks and one of Clint's t-shirts and opted to sleep downstairs, deciding that he needed his time to just be alone. She pulled blankets out of the hall closet, suddenly regretting her decision not to wear pants and curled up on the couch. She put a gun under her pillow, her hand wrapped around the cool metal just in case and a baby monitor on the coffee table.

She fell asleep quickly, her body and mind exhausted. It had to have been at least three or four hours later, but she felt as though her eyes had only been closed for a minute when she woke suddenly. There was rustling in the kitchen, but the moonlight streaming in through the windows didn't provide her with enough light to see who or what it is. Her grip on the gun tightened and when she heard another noise, she pulled it out into the open and soundlessly crossed the room. Her hand slid along the wall, finding the light switch. Shaking the rest of the sleep out of her body, she counted to three in her head and flicked on the light aiming her gun at the silhouette that was still unaware of her presence.

Her finger tightened on the trigger, but her eyes adjusted before she fired.

"What the hell are you doing?" She barked, not lowering the gun.

Clint smiled tiredly at her, one hand raised in the air in surrender and the other clutching a box of Cheez-its.

"Easy there," Clint yawned. "You can't shoot a man in his own kitchen."

"You can't sneak around when there's an assassin sleeping in the other room and not expect them to try to shoot you," she fired back, lowering the gun.

"Nice shirt," Clint said. "But isn't it a little cold to be running around with your ass hanging out?"

"Is it a little late to be rummaging around in the kitchen for snacks?" Natasha asked using the butt of her hand to rub her eyes.

"I haven't eaten anything today," Clint said. "I feel like I'm about to wither away to nothing."

"Whose fault is that?" Natasha asked, hopping up onto the counter. He handed her the box of Cheez-its and she dug out a handful before passing it back to him. "Look, Clint I miss her too."

"Thanks for taking care of the kids today," Clint said through a mouthful of food.

"Sure thing," Natasha smiled, taking the glass of water out of her partner's hand and taking a sip of it.

And she wasn't sure how it happened, but he was stepping closer to her and she was staring him down and there was this desire building in her stomach that she hadn't felt in a long time. His lips were soft against hers, his hands warm on the base of her back and rough on her cheek. She hadn't felt this close to anyone in so long and it wasn't something she had realized she was craving either. Not until she was wrapping her legs around his waist and she felt that all too familiar outline of his hands hoisting her into the air.

"Clint," she whispered in his ear as he carried her up the stairs. She felt his lips leave her neck for only a second as he fumbled with the door knob and the two fell onto the bed in a heap.

"You ready for this, kiddo?" Clint asked, a playful smile on his lips.


	7. Chapter 7

**I OWN NOTHING!**

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

 _And suddenly she was that sixteen year old girl who he dug that tracker out of all those years ago. She was the girl who was there when he was at the end of his rope. And she was in that hotel in Budapest sitting cross legged on the bed in his hotel room cleaning her gun obsessively. Clint was in the shower, singing some annoying show-tune. Her body was tense with stress, every nerve in her body on edge. The wet, frizzy strands of fiery red hair fell in her eyes as she muttered under her breath angrily in Russian._

 _She heard the water shut off and Clint's feet slapping against the bathroom floor. The door swung open and Clint walked into the room, unacknowledged by Natasha, with a towel wrapped around his waist loosely. He watched her for a moment, slightly dumbfounded with her. She looked so concentrated and frustrated. Her muscles were tensed up so tight he could see each movement she made through the fabric of her sports bra._

 _"_ _Woah there, kiddo," Clint said, sitting down behind her on the bed. "Calm down."_

 _She felt his hands on her shoulder, her body relaxing into his touch subconsciously. There it was, that thing boiling inside of her. This fire that she had never felt before and she couldn't fight it. It was the only thing she had encountered in her lifetime that was stronger than she was._

 _Natasha let him take the gun out of her hands and put it on the night stand. His hands found their way back to her shoulders, rubbing deeply in circles. The tension dissolved from her body and she leaned into him._

 _And somehow, it was happening all faster than she could comprehend. Her body was giving into him, that stupid feeling writing a story for her that she could not have begun to foresee. Oh, how fast she would have run away had she known how deeply she was burying herself._

 _Natasha was no virgin, but with all the men she had seduced, with every man that kissed her, none of them had ever made her feel quite like this. Clint was something special, he was something different. For once in a really long time, sex was more than just a weapon. It was something that brought her close to someone else, not gave her the upper hand. In fact, she realized, that this was a weakness. One that she decided, she didn't mind having._

 _Their bodies moved in perfect sync, as was to be suspected of them. They were always two pieces of the same part, moving in the field like one. This was no different, except at the same time, everything was different._

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Natasha woke up the next morning alone all tangled up in the sheets. In fact, she would have believed she imagined all that had happened the night before had it not been for the way the cool autumn air that was streaming in through the open window bit at her bare skin. She pulled the sheet off of her body and put on one of Clint's sweatshirts. One look at the clock told her that the kids were at school. That being the case, she opted to ditch the pants again.

When she entered the kitchen, Clint was standing at the stove in a pair of socks and his boxers. She crossed the room, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. She wrapped her arms around Clint's waist, resting her cheek on his back, feeling the taut muscles flexing and shifting as he worked on whatever was on the stove.

"Smells good," she said, sleep still evident in her voice.

"Tomato spinach omelet for the lady," Clint smiled, dropping his creation onto a plate and handing it to the half-dressed woman in front of him. It appeared that it was only then that he realized what she was wearing, or rather, what she wasn't wearing.

"Why thank you," Natasha chuckled taking the plate being extended to her. She placed it on the table and sat down, taking a bite while Clint placed the dishes in the sink. After the dishwasher was loaded and the counter wiped down, he sat down at the table across from her skimming over the newspaper he had left untouched thus far.

Nothing new really. People were killing each other in the Middle East. Some republican had said something stupid. A college student had discovered a more efficient way to harness solar power. The UN was coming with another useless plan to combat Hydra. Same old same old really.

"I have to go into the base for a few days," Natasha said. "Get some paperwork done and run a routine op with Rogers."

"Does this have something to do with what happened last night?" Clint asked.

"No, I'm not running away. I just have some work to do."

"What kind of op is it?"

"Classified," she bit back a little too quickly. When Clint looked at her startled, she softened a little. "I'm not supposed to discuss the New York Initiative with anyone not in the program. It's not that I don't trust you, its protocol."

"I understand, kiddo," Clint said. "You don't have to explain it, I was a SHIELD big dog once. I know what it's like to have to keep secrets from people you care about. Why do you think my first marriage failed? Bobbi was on a different strike team than I was, we were so used to keeping secrets we started to lie to each other."

"I don't like keeping secrets from you," Natasha said, glancing down into her cup of coffee. "I've lied to you yes, but that was a long time ago and we've come so far and I don't like going down this road again."

"It's not the same road," Clint said grabbing her hand and squeezing it. "When do you leave?"

"Tonight, I'll be back in a few days. It's routine."

"There is no such thing as routine in our line of work, Tash," Clint said. "Do you at least have an extraction plan?"

"Do I ever have an extraction plan?"


	8. Chapter 8

**I OWN NOTHING!**

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

It was routine, she said, everything would be fine, she said. And in a way in was routine, things always went to hell like that. She just hadn't expected it to go that far that quickly. The building was in flames, a side-effect of this girl's gift that was not in her file. Apparently she could make things just go up in flames, oh what a freaking joy.

The worst part, though, was the complete disregard this girl had for life. She had burned down most of the town and all the people in it by the time SHIELD boots had hit the ground. Steve took it worst of all, the amount of civilians that they had to bury, but he didn't have to take the kill shot. He didn't have to shoot that girl, the one that reminded her oh so much of herself.

Had this girl been reached sooner, had she been trained by different people things could have been different. She was the Black Widow, death never bothered her, shooting a mark never bothered her. But this was different, she closed her eyes as she squeezed the trigger and she felt her whole body tense. She heard the bang of her gun firing and the thud as the young girl's body hit the ground.

It was like the world froze in that instant and she felt this twist in her stomach when she forced herself to pull open her eyelids. "I'm so sorry," Natasha whispered, so low that even Steve who was standing next to her couldn't hear it. That girl, Bianca Agresta, she lied there in the dirt surrounded by the destruction she had caused. The flames of her fires were still burning, but were dying out. A few children and adults were being evacuated by SHIELD operatives, the few survivors covered in soot and coughing on the smoke that filled their lungs. Smoke clouded out the stars and the moon, the only light available the harsh glow from the dwindling fire.

She was beautiful lying there, peaceful in such a way that it was hard to imagine that she was the cause of all this destruction. Natasha didn't know this girl, had only heard her say something once. Her words mangled by the thick Italian accent but the words were cause enough for her to be crossed off. 'Hail Hydra' she said, her eyes glowing with the deep rooted evil that she was becoming all too familiar with.

When she dragged herself through the front door of the farm house, she tried her best to be quiet. She was silent as she ascended the stairs, her boots dragging heavily on the carpet. Natasha dropped her gear in the rocking chair and pealed her uniform off of her skin. Clint was passed out in the bed, the sleeping form moving up and down with every breath he took.

Natasha turned on the water in the shower and used her arms to support her against the tile of the wall, letting the warm water strip her skin of the blood and the soot and all the other things she didn't want to think about. The water dripped from her hair and she watched the grime wash down the drain.

As the adrenaline wore off and her body began to relax, she felt the burns on her arms and the gash over her eye. The pain was something she relished in, a familiar sensation that kept her tethered to the world.

She was so caught up in her head that she didn't notice the bathroom door open and if she did, she didn't let on. She didn't see the shower door slide or fight it when she felt his strong arms pull her body into his. Her body began to shake with sobs as she turned into him, nestling herself into the crook of neck.

"I didn't have a choice," she cried. "She didn't give me a choice."

Clint didn't say anything, just held her in that way that he used to. The way that he knew she would usually have rebelled against, but in times like these, needed. When he held her, he was warding of nightmares and ghosts that lurked in the depths of her mind. It reminded her she was still human, that she wasn't alone.

"I couldn't save her," she whimpered. Clint shut off the water, grabbing a towel off the rack and wrapping it around her before securing one around his own waist. With practiced ease, he pulled a t-shirt over her head and used her towel to dry her hair a little bit. Gently, as if she were one of his children, he tucked her into the bed. Quickly he pulled on the pajamas he had ditched and climbed in next to her. His presence and warmth offered the slightest bit of comfort as she slipped into a restless sleep.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

It didn't take long for Bianca to join the ranks of ghosts that haunted Natasha in her sleep. Two days after she had returned home –the sloppy stitches in her forehead were still fresh –when she woke up screaming. Her body was covered in cold sweat and her hair was plastered to her face. She was tangled up in the sheets and a hand had clamped down on Clint's arm. He was awake the second he felt her jolt up right in their bed, mere moments before her horrified shriek sliced through the night.

In one swift movement, he had her pulled into his body and his arms wrapped around her keeping her instinctive movements under control. Eventually, the fight in her left and she went still in his arms. Her body shook ever so slightly with the sobs that were raking through her. His fingers dragged through her hair soothing her.

He felt her body go limp in his arms, her breaths became deeper and her heartrate slowed as she drifted back to sleep. As the night progressed, Clint stayed like that scared that any movement might disturb her. Something was off with her, like part of her had died when that girl had.

When the sun rose the next morning and Lila came running into their room excited to watch cartoons and eat breakfast. Natasha untangled herself from a still half-asleep Clint and followed Lila down the hallway as if the night before hadn't happened. She turned on the stove and started the pancakes she had promised Cooper.

The pancakes were on the table and the kids were chowing down when Clint came down the stairs carrying a babbling toddler in his arms. Natasha pulled the tray off the high chair and Clint sat the baby in it. He chopped up a pancake and placed a bowl of yogurt on the tray and handed Nate a small plastic spoon that would likely end up on the floor.

And just like that, things were back to normal, a fact that Clint had trouble accepting. She was the Black Widow, things never fazed her and on the off chance they did, she was over them in a few hours at most. He watched her move around the room, helping Lila cut her pancakes into strips and coaxing mashed up bites into the babies mouth. She was good, he had to admit that, but he knew her too well. There was this twinkle in her eye, a tell-tale sign that she was still being weighed down with whatever it was that went down in Italy.


	9. Chapter 9

**I OWN NOTHING!**

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Steve showed up at the door of the farmhouse out of the blue. A mission file was clasped in his hands and he looked inconspicuous in a pair of ripped up jeans and dark-lensed sunglasses. His muscles bulged against the cloth of his v-neck and hoodie. No matter how close they had gotten over the years, she dreaded his visit. It meant only one thing, something she wasn't looking forward to.

"Where are we going this time?" Natasha asked, her eyes stuck on the blue label on the folder in her colleague's hand with the New York Initiative insignia.

"You can say no if you want," Steve said, stepping across the door way as Natasha opened the door farther.

"Rogers, where are we going?" She repeated, her tone a little more cutting and a little more forceful than it had been before.

"Greece," Steve said, dropping the file on the kitchen table.

"That's the second Mediterranean country in the last two months, Steve," Natasha said, filling the folder open.

"What does that mean for the Initiative?" Steve asked accepting the glass of water from Natasha.

"It means the crystals are spreading faster than we thought they would?" Natasha said flipping through the pages. "If cases are sprouting up in Europe already our calculations were off. How many cases did Johnson's team take in Europe?"

"Four from us that I know of," Steve said. "They were relatively easy cases."

"I'll have SHIELD analysists look into it later," Natasha said. "It's been awhile since I've been to Greece, when do we leave."

"You aren't cleared for the field, Coulson agrees with me that after Italy you need to sit this one out. I came here to get your clearance on the mission, you are the director of the initiative. And you're the strongest field operator in the agency, I wanted to talk strategy."

"I am perfectly capable of going back into the field," Natasha said a little halfheartedly.

"You have Clint and the kids to think of," Steve said. "Stay here, heal up. Fury wouldn't let you in the field with stitches in your forehead."

Natasha's hands brushed her eyebrow, feeling the puffy stitches. "You know that's not true," Natasha said. "He would have no problem putting me back in the field."

"This is a new SHIELD," Steve said. "We don't have the resources we did before this whole thing started. We need to be more careful."

"This may be a new SHIELD, but we are still just assets."

"Coulson doesn't just see you as an asset, Romanoff, you're a person, a soldier."

"I'm no soldier," Natasha said, her eyes glazing over and he could feel her growing distant. Steve had experienced vague and cryptic Natasha before, even PTSD Natasha, but this was something else. Of all the hours he spent staked out with her, all the moments she managed to surprise him, this was the most startling of them all. And suddenly, whatever it was that came over her passed and her expression hardened. She was super-secret spy, bad-ass Natasha. "You wanted to discuss strategy?"

"Yeah," Steve said, letting her sudden shift slide. Italy had been horrible, something none of them suspected.

"First things first, fewer men, lessen the possibility of detection. Take Agent 13, she's got good instincts and she's approachable, but can hold her own if things go to hell. This girl, Athena, she'll be scared. She's only eleven. She'll likely be hiding somewhere, but she'll be easy to find, just follow the trail of destruction. Locals might believe she's sent from the gods, a half-blood even. From what this says, she's got the ability to control carbon molecules."

"Almost everything has carbon in it," Steve said.

"Exactly," Natasha said. "Prevent intimidation and scaring her, she likely has little control over her gifts yet and if she's anything like Johnson was when she went through terra-genesis, she'll be volatile and her gifts will be dictated by her emotions. She's a threat, but most likely not by choice. You shouldn't be a part of the greeting team, you couldn't hurt her, but you are fairly intimidating and might scare her."

"I'll try not to be offended by that," Steve said, sitting back in his chair.

"It's nothing personal," Natasha said. "The only guy that I would send in would be Banner. Steve, you were engineered to look like the model soldier, not a teddy bear."

"No, I get it," Steve said. "I'm not exactly approachable."

"This poor girl," Natasha said. "She's not that much older than Cooper, I can't help imagine Coop or Lila or even Nate in her shoes. It's scary, this world is horrifying. I've always known it, but it's so much worse now that I…"

Natasha didn't know what she was trying to say. What? Now that she was a mom. No that wasn't right, was it? She was thankful when Steve picked up the empty conversation.

"I can't imagine what it would be like raising kids in this world," Steve said. "Maybe seventy years ago, but now? There are too many monsters, too much distrust."

"I thought the same thing too," Natasha said. "I never wanted a family, didn't believe it was an option. My world was about survival, nothing else for such a long time. Clint, he always wanted a family, wanted to settle down and I didn't really get it. Not until I stepped into that hospital room and Laura handed me that red and wrinkly…burrito. He wasn't even my kid and I felt this thing…this desire to protect him. Even then, I didn't want to be a mom. I still don't think I could really have children of my own, but this is my family now. I'm never going to be Laura, but I can be Aunt Nat for them. This world is gross and disgusting and there's evil that I can't even understand, but they have this innocence that I cannot understand either and I love them. I would go to the end of the world to make sure they get to keep that innocence."

"That sounds like a mother to me," Steve said. "You aren't Laura, but you are a mother for them. Don't underestimate yourself."

"Keep me posted on this op," Natasha said, changing the subject. It was then that he realized that Natasha was wearing athletic leggings and a hot pink tank top. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and she had a pair of running shoes on. Her pale cheeks were slightly flushed.

"Sorry I interrupted your workout," Steve said.

"It's no big deal really," Natasha said. "Clint is on base today so I don't have anyone to spar with, it's a little boring. I was on the treadmill downstairs. Wanna spar? There's a gym set up in the barn."

"Is the baby here?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," Natasha replied, producing a baby monitor. Soft snores emitted from the speaker. "Naptime is almost over. Give it about a minute and he'll be awake."

As if on schedule, the sound of stirring could be heard and then the small groans of a small child. Natasha left the baby monitor on the table and ran up the stairs. Steve could hear her gentle cooing through the speaker on the table. "Hey, baby," she said. Her words met with giggles from Nate.

He was standing up in his crib, holding himself up on the bars. Nate was smiling at her, happy to see her. She approached him and he held his arms out in her direction. Natasha lifted him out of the crib and rested him on her hip before turning on her heel and walking back down the stairs.

"Say hi to Uncle Steve," Natasha smiled, bouncing the baby who babbled happily with his fingers in his mouth. Natasha handed the baby to Steve gently, smiling at the way the man cradled the child so delicately.

The duo walked out of the house and across the yard. She pulled open the door to the barn and Steve wasn't all that shocked. The interior didn't match the outside at all. There was a pile of baby toys in the corner, but other than that, it looked identical to a SHIELD facility gym. There was a ramp that led up to the second floor loft on top of which was a wall of weapons lined up neatly and what appeared to be an archery range. A motorcycle, one Clint so gleefully named the Widow mobile, was parked next to the line-up of weapons. On the first floor, there was a mat spread out and a punching bag dangled from the ceiling. There was a bench off to the side, a first aid kit open on it and a few feet away a mini-fridge. She opened the fridge and he saw a row of water bottles and some ice packs. Steve sat Nate down in the corner and he happily obliged as he giggled.

They stretched quickly and then set to work, both a little bit to desperate to fight with someone who was as strong as they were. Steve made the first move, as it always had been. She dodged his blow easily and grabbed his arm, using his weight against him she pulled him to the ground. Steve moved quickly, grabbing her as he fell toward the mat. They both toppled to the ground, Natasha landing on top of him chuckling slightly as she adjusted herself so she was pinning Steve to the ground. He was stronger than her, though and quickly shifted so she was struggling beneath him. She was quick and calculating, assessing all possible ways out of her current predicament. In a rather ungraceful twist and kick, she sent Steve rolling across the mat. He wasn't all that shocked with the amount of force behind Natasha's counter-attacks.

"You are quite impressive Agent Romanoff," Steve huffed, still recovering from the kick that sent all the air out of his lungs. Each breath burned as he wheezed. He didn't have a broken rib, just a bruised ego.

"So I've been told," Natasha quipped rising to her feet, arrogance evident in her voice. She crossed the room and approached the baby playing happily in the corner still. At the sight of her, Nate dropped the toys in his hand and held his arms up. She smiled, lifting him off the ground and placing him on her hip. Steve followed her back to the house and they discussed more strategies for the mission.

Natasha opened the door, hearing Clint shouting at the two kids running around the living room to stop running in the house. By the look on his face, he wasn't all that shocked to see Steve. They shook hands quickly and Clint returned to the dinner preparation. There was the sound of glass shattering and a crash from upstairs. Natasha and Clint exchanged glances as the sound of the children placing blame on each other echoed throughout the house. A quick game of rock, paper, scissors was played, Clint losing after three rounds. Natasha smirked and Clint rolled his eyes as he disappeared upstairs.

"You guys are a good team," Steve commented.

"Yeah," Natasha smiled, looking at the stairs with a slight smile on her lips. "We have always worked pretty well together."

Clint returned moments later, putting a halt to the conversation. "What's broken?" Natasha asked.

"One of Coop's soccer trophies," Clint replied, holding up the broken pieces of said trophy. He opened a door and pulled out some super-glue. He set to work quickly, putting the pieces back together with practiced expertise. His movements were delicate, his fingers moving gently.

"Are you staying for dinner Steve?" Natasha asked. Nate was still on hip and with her free hand she was setting plates in their rightful spot on the table.

"You're more than welcome," Clint added. "We are having Stir-fry."

"If you wouldn't mind," Steve said.

"We aren't the greatest cooks," Natasha smiled. "But it beats SHIELD cafeteria food any day."

"As long as it's warm and not lumpy it beats SHIELD food," Clint chuckled from the stove.

Natasha rounded up the children and sat Nate down in the high chair. Piles of rice and sautéed vegetables were heaped onto plates. Steve chuckled as he watched Lila push all the green vegetables to the side of her plate. Natasha put bits of her own meal in her mouth all the while making sure more food went into the baby's mouth than were thrown to the floor. Cooper shoveled his food quickly and rolled his eyes when Clint told him to breathe between bites. This family in front of Steve, it seemed too normal to be led by two assassins. He was happy for them, but he didn't understand it. How could two people who had seen so much violence be this gentle, be this loving?


	10. Chapter 10

**I OWN NOTHING! Just a little heads up, this is the last chapter. It's more of an epilogue and it is severely shorter than any of the other chapters that I've written. I think that this is probably all that I can do with this fic and I'm losing inspiration for everything I am working on currently, not just this. I think that ten is probably a good number to end at so that's where I am cutting it off. I love all of you.**

()()()()()()()()()()()()

"Nate is down," Natasha said, flopping down on the bed next to Clint. She kissed him on the cheek and pulled the covers up to her chin. "Finally."

She rested her head on her pillow, facing Clint. He was reading a case file, a stupid drug cartel south of the border raising hell. He put the file down and pulled her into his body a little bit while he lied down. Like she was weightless and like he had done it a million times. He reached over and turned off the lamp on his bedside table.

"Are you still trying to set Steve up with someone," Clint asked.

"The kind of girls he likes are hard to come by," Natash"a said. "Girls from the forties don't really exist anymore."

"That breed of women do seem to be extinct," Clint agreed.

Natasha curled up more, pulling closer to Clint if that was at all possible. She felt his heat and reveled in it. Part of her wanted to be out in the field with Steve doing her job and saving the world. But the other part, the bigger more selfish part, never wanted to get out of that bed.

"I love you, kiddo," Clint whispered. She felt his warm breath on her ear, sending shivers down her spine.

"I love you, too, old man," Natasha smiled back. When his lips touched hers, she felt her body light on fire. She craved him in the most innocent way possible.

"I'm glad you came home, Nat," Clint whispered in her ear. "I was waiting."

"It's good to be home," she replied. It was like that last decade had slipped away and they were married again. Long before Laura and the kids. She was his and he was hers, there was no question about it. This was their home, this was their family. This was her happily ever after.


End file.
